Drug companies are quietly pushing through price hikes of 100% — or even more than 1,000% — for a very small but growing number of prescription drugs, helping to drive up costs for insurers, patients and government programs.
Among the examples: Questcor Pharmaceuticals last August raised the wholesale price on Acthar, which treats spasms in babies, from about $1,650 a vial to more than $23,000. Ovation raised the cost of Cosmegen, which treats a type of tumor, from $16.79 to $593.75 in January 2006.
The average wholesale price of 26 brand-name drugs jumped 100% or more in a single cost adjustment last year, up from 15 in 2004, the university study found. In the first half of this year, 17 drugs made the list.
Ali Mokdad stands in the heart of Beirut. Cars and trucks and motorcycles rumble everywhere."If you...
For years, parents were told not to expose their babies to peanuts, to prevent a potentially...
Nearly 80 people got sick in a norovirus outbreak on an Oceania Cruises ship.Among the 637...
Late last month, the New York City medical examiner confirmed the man who shot and killed...
